Current state of Cassandra on Windows and switching from Windows to Linux

[Vincent Smit <vi...@energy21.nl>]

Hi,

I am currently involved in a project to scale-up an existing Windows Cassandra cluster because we are planning to migrate large amounts of historic data. However, I am a bit skeptical to keep using Windows for the nodes. I have done some research about Cassandra on Windows and found some releasenotes that there is official support for Windows since 2.2.x. but since then I cannot find any mention of Windows support.

I was wondering what the current state of Cassandra is on windows?

Second question; I we do decide to switch to Linux, would the following migration path work? It is vital that there is no downtime for the client application..
1. Set-up a new Linux cluster and have our incoming data stream into the existing Windows and new Linux cluster.
2. Use the SSTableloader to stream the existing SSTables to the Linux cluster.
3. Switch the endpoint of the application to the new Linux cluster.

Would this work even if we have incoming live data that share the partitionkeys with the data that needs to be migrated? Could the timestamps or tombstones cause a problem?


Met vriendelijke groeten / Best regards / Mit freundlichen Grüssen,

Vincent Smit
Energy Consultant

MOB      +31 (0)6 2141 5772
EMAIL    vincent.smit@energy21.nl<ma...@energy21.nl>
[email footer]

Re: Current state of Cassandra on Windows and switching from Windows to Linux

[Jeff Jirsa <jj...@gmail.com>]

Inline

-- 
Jeff Jirsa


> On Dec 22, 2017, at 2:01 AM, Vincent Smit <vi...@energy21.nl> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
>  
> I am currently involved in a project to scale-up an existing Windows Cassandra cluster because we are planning to migrate large amounts of historic data. However, I am a bit skeptical to keep using Windows for the nodes. I have done some research about Cassandra on Windows and found some releasenotes that there is official support for Windows since 2.2.x. but since then I cannot find any mention of Windows support.
>  
> I was wondering what the current state of Cassandra is on windows?

It probably mostly works, but I’m not aware of any large users or active testing using any OS other than Linux. I suspect (wild ass guess) most people using cassandra on windows have it running on local developer machines, not prod clusters. 

>  
> Second question; I we do decide to switch to Linux, would the following migration path work? It is vital that there is no downtime for the client application..

I’m going to guess below, but it’s a guess, and you should practice this before you do it.

> 1. Set-up a new Linux cluster and have our incoming data stream into the existing Windows and new Linux cluster.
> 2. Use the SSTableloader to stream the existing SSTables to the Linux cluster.
> 3. Switch the endpoint of the application to the new Linux cluster.

This double writing probably works. It may also be possible to have a mixed-os cluster - I would personally try to add a Linux node (or data center)  to a windows cluster, and then remove a windows node, and repeat until it’s all Linux. I’ve never done that, but no reason to believe it wouldn’t work.


>  
> Would this work even if we have incoming live data that share the partitionkeys with the data that needs to be migrated? Could the timestamps or tombstones cause a problem?
>  

It should be fine. Timestamps and tombstones both live in the sstable, and will transfer across, but you need to set gc grace seconds artificially high during the migration to make sure no tombstones get cleaned up on the Linux cluster until the transfer back from windows is complete. 


Good luck, do let us know if it works (or doesn’t work)


>  
> Met vriendelijke groeten / Best regards / Mit freundlichen Grüssen,
>  
> Vincent Smit
> Energy Consultant
>  
> MOB      +31 (0)6 2141 5772
> EMAIL    vincent.smit@energy21.nl
> <image001.png>
>